Quoth the Raven
by Lirazel
Summary: “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”    Dean Winchester knows the power of blood. [Dean and Lenore and Bloodlust]


Quoth the Raven

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Dean Winchester knows the power of blood. Dean/Lenore (Bloodlust)

_A/N: This is a little strange and a little dark, but I couldn't get the title out of my head and the story grew up around it. Featuring Lenore, the vampire from Episode 2.03, "Bloodlust." I'd appreciate any feedback._

_Disclaimer: They're Kripke's. _

_I._

She's more tortured than he is, and that's the last thing he needs in a woman. Keep it light, keep it loose, for God's sake, keep it short. That clearly isn't the way it's going this time.

He pretends that doesn't scare him to death.

_II._

There are scars marring perfect skin, and he can't help but feel responsible (_Sammy says 'responsible' really means 'guilty' and it really isn't his fault_). She shakes her head when he tries to clumsily apologize (he's never been particularly good at that), and he isn't sure whether she actually forgives him.

He runs calloused fingertips over the raised places, fearing that his rough skin will catch on her silk. Just like with the scars he catches glimpses of on Sam when his brother changes at night, each one of these feels like a failure. On his part.

_III._

They're both fighting their natures, and he isn't sure what either one of them thinks they're going to get out of this or why it's worth fighting for. This can't last, and they both know it.

But he swallows his instincts, the (second) most valuable thing in his life, the ones that are screaming at him to chop off her head while she sleeps. If that isn't twisted, he doesn't know what is.

And when he stumbles in one night after a fight, with several fresh cuts (he didn't expect for her to be there yet), she flees (in the split second before he does, he can hear her hissing, see the fangs sliding out of their hiding place), and he doesn't see her for four days.

But she comes back. He's pretty sure that means something.

_IV._

She is one hundred and eight-seven years old. She's seen more wars than he can imagine, more births and deaths, more presidents and kings and movie stars, more sunrises and sunsets. Edgar Allen Poe wrote his most famous poem for her, one that reeked of tragedy and pity—she can't stand to hear it. She was friends with Henry James before he left for England—they liked to tell each other ghost stories—and she may or may not have met Bram Stoker during his tour of America with Henry Irving.

All this she tells him. But she never mentions who she was before she was bit, and he doesn't ask.

After all, he tells her about his last hunt but never brings up Mom or Lawrence or Dad or yellow-eyed demons or Sammy's special powers, so he figures they're even.

_V._

Once when he's got a broken leg, Sam goes out and buys him a cherry pie to cheer him up. She sits perched on the table by the television and watches him eat and there's a wistful look in her eyes.

Without thinking, he offers her a bite. It's the first time he ever hears her laugh.

_VI._

His dreams, when she sleeps beside him, are dark and strange and he can never remember them when he wakes. Instead, there's a chill creeping over his skin and he can see in the dark.

She's warm at his side, but there is no sound of breathing or a heartbeat to ground him. It's then that he can't flinch away from the knowledge that she isn't human and can never be again.

_VII._

She slips away well before sunrise every morning, and he figures that's karma, payback for all the girls he left the same way. Figures that the first girl since Cassie he kind of _wants_ to stick around and wake up beside and all that chick flick crap is the one who has to leave him.

_VIII._

Her nest figures out about them pretty quickly, and they don't approve. But she's the oldest, the one who keeps them strong and holds them together, and none of them say anything.

He's pretty sure if one of them did, she'd leave him.

_IX._

He killed her best friend, and she knows that. He doesn't tell her he enjoyed it, but he thinks she knows anyway.

She does tell him that Conrad was the first one to join her in her way of life, the one she cared the most about, the one who'd talked her back from the edge of bloodlust a thousand times.

Lady sure knows how to layer on the guilt. But he knows the power of blood, so they're quite the match.

_X._

Another maniacal hunter with a glint in his eyes that gives Dean goosebumps and reminds him of Gordon comes way too close. He's seconds away from beheading her when Dean puts three bullets in his chest.

The guilt and the irony all tear him up—he killed a _human_ to protect a _vampire_—so much that he can hardly bear to think about it.

He won't let Sam let her into the room when they hear her gentle knock. He can't bear to look at her.

_XI._

Sam really likes her. He admires her conviction and how much she's willing to sacrifice to fight her nature and how much she puts up with from Dean.

She teases Sammy sometimes, jokes around with him in a quiet way she never has with Dean, and he pretends that doesn't sting.

But what it comes down to is that she trusts Sam. She's never really felt safe with Dean.

He doesn't blame her at all.

_XII._

It's kind of nice, having a sort of home base, a city to come back to once a hunt is over, to recuperate for a few days in a fleabag motel with a pie and a pretty girl. Even if the girl is a century and a half older than he is.

It's too good to last.

_XIII._

One day they pull in after dispatching a poltergeist in Kansas City, check into the Cheyenne Motel, and wait. She never shows up.

He remembers now, before they left. The way she leaned in close, slid her lips across his cheek to meet his and whispered, _Goodbye._

He never sees her again.


End file.
